04 September 2019
Vladimir Salamatov: "We must transform ourselves and realize that a free trade area will remove what's redundant and boost what's new and promising"

Experts of the International Trade and Integration Research Center (ITI) are taking an active part in the business program of the 5th Eastern Economic Forum.

On Tuesday, September 3, General Director of ITI Vladimir Salamatov moderated the session titled     "A Common Economic Space from the Atlantic to the Pacific".

The session was focused on ways to facilitate the formation of a common economic space in the megaregion. In this context, the key topics of the discussion included facilitating the development of international cooperation and joint efforts from Lisbon to Vladivostok (or, in other words, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean) and establishing and coordinating bilateral and multilateral relations between EAEU member states and their partners in the European Union.

"We know that Eurasian countries cooperate with each other in trade very actively. But we also realize quite well that to make a market of 5.1 billion people barrier-free, we'll have to do a lot more," Vladimir Salamatov, General Director of ITI, said.

The participants discussed issues related to creating a free trade area and a unified finance and investment market, simplifying the movement of labor resources, reducing administrative barriers, developing transport infrastructure, and simplifying and synchronizing customs rules and procedures.

"Today's session was very aptly named. All sessions of this kind, both at EEF and at the forum in St. Petersburg, were named – well, roughly – "From the Atlantic to the Pacific" or "From Lisbon to Vladivostok". This session is the first one that says that we must build up an economic community – and not only economic but also an infrastructural community and a political community stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic," said Sergey Karaganov, Dean, Faculty of Global Economy and Global Politics, National Research University Higher School of Economics; Honorary Chairman of the Presidium, Council of Foreign and Defense Policy; Member, Valdai Discussion Club.

See a full report on the session at the ROSCONGRESS.ORG information and analytical portal.